Optimism Bias (偏见)
While we often like to think of ourselves as highly rational and logical, researchers have found that the human brain is sometimes too optimistic for its own good. If you were asked to estimate how likely you are to experience illness, job loss, or an accident, you are likely to underestimate the probability that such events will ever impact your life. 1.
This bias leads us to believe that we are less likely to suffer from misfortune and more likely to attain success than reality would suggest. We believe that we will live longer, and that we will be more successful in life than the average. 2.
The optimism bias is essentially a mistaken belief that our chances of experiencing negative events are lower and our chances of experiencing positive events are higher than those of our peers. And this overly positive assumption doesn’t mean that we have an overly sunny outlook on our own lives. 3. People might skip their yearly physical, not wear their seatbelt, or fail to put on sunscreen because they mistakenly believe that they are less likely to get sick, get in an accident, or get skin cancer.
Cognitive neuroscientist Tali Sharot, author of The Optimism Bias: A Tour of the Irrationally Positive Brain, notes that this bias is widespread and can be seen in cultures all over the world. Sharot also suggests that while this optimism bias can at times lead to negative outcomes like foolishly engaging in risky behaviors or making poor choices about your health, it can also have its benefits. 4. If we expect good things to happen, we are more likely to be happy. This optimism can act as a self-fulfilling prophecy. By believing that we will be successful, people are in fact more likely to be successful.
5. After all, if we didn’t believe that we could achieve success, why would we even bother trying? Optimists are also more likely to take measures to protect their health such as exercising, taking vitamins, and following a nutritious diet.
A.Optimism also motivates us to pursue our goals.
B.But we are also highly motivated to be so optimistic.
C.But definitely not everyone is blessed with such luck.
D.This is because your brain has a built-in optimism bias.
E.It can also lead to poor decision-making, which can sometimes have disastrous results.
F.This optimism enhances well-being by creating a sense of anticipation about the future.
G.Various causes may lead to the optimistic bias, including cognitive and motivational factors.
The first patient who died on my watch was an older man with a faulty heart — the main pump had failed and his heart was beating irregularly and far too fast. We tried to slow it down with treatment, but it suddenly stopped beating completely. Later, whenever I would have a case like that one, I found myself second-guessing my clinical management. However, it turns out that thinking twice may actually cause more harm than good.
In a working paper, Emory University researchers found that when doctors delivering a baby have an adverse outcome, they are more likely to switch to a different delivery method with the next patient, often unnecessarily and sometimes with worse results.
Because doctors make so many decisions that have serious consequences, the fallout from second-guessing looms especially large for us. A 2006 study found that if a patient had a bleed after being prescribed warfarin, the physician was about 20% less likely to prescribe subsequent patients the blood thinner that prevents strokes. However, if a patient had a stroke and was not on warfarin, physicians were still no more likely to prescribe warfarin to their other patients.
These findings highlight interesting behavioral patterns in doctors. In the blood-thinner study, doctors were more affected by the act of doing harm (prescribing a blood thinner that ended up hurting a patient) and less affected by letting harm happen (not prescribing a blood thinner and the patient having a stroke). Yet a stroke is often more permanent and damaging than a bleed.
But this phenomenon is not unique to medicine. “Overreaction to Fearsome Risks” holds true for broader society.
For instance, sensational headlines about shark attacks on humans in Florida in 2001 caused a panic and led the state to prohibit shark feeding expeditions. Yet shark attacks had actually fallen that year and, according to the study, such a change was probably unnecessary given the extremely small risk of such an attack happening.
Humans are susceptible to emotional and often irrational thinking when processing information, adverse events and mistakes. As much as we don’t want to cause an unfortunate event to recur — in a medical setting or in the wider world — we need to be aware that a worst case scenario doesn’t necessarily mean we did anything wrong. When we overthink, we fail to rely on thinking based on what we know or have experienced. Instead, we may inadvertently overanalyze and come to the wrong conclusion.
I have treated dozens of patients who presented with the same illnesses as my first patient, who died more than a year ago. Instead of second guessing myself, I trusted my clinical instinct and stayed the course. Every one of those patients survived. You should trust your instinct in your life, too.
1.The first two paragraphs suggest that ______
A.Bad medical outcomes affect doctors.
B.Delivering babies can be difficult work.
C.Some doctors are not very experienced.
D.Doctors sometimes make silly mistakes.
2.In the blood-thinner study, doctors ______.
A.tend to prescribe less effective medicine
B.are more concerned about the patients’ safety
C.believe a stroke is more treatable than a bleeding
D.become less confident in writing certain prescriptions
3.The author develops his idea mainly by ______.
A.giving examples B.making comparisons
C.using metaphors D.quoting famous sayings
4.The author will probably agree that ______.
A.we shouldn’t doubt our own decisions
B.our experience will pave way for our future
C.humans are emotional and irrational on the whole
D.instincts don’t necessarily lead to wrong directions
Although it has been revealed in recent years that plants are capable of seeing, hearing and smelling, they are still usually thought of as silent. But now, for the first time, they have been recorded making ultrasonic cries when stressed, which researchers say could open up a new field of precision agriculture where farmers listen for water-starved crops.
Itzhak Khait and his colleagues at Tel Aviv University in Israel found that tomato and tobacco plants made cries at frequencies humans cannot hear when stressed by a lack of water or when their stem is cut.
Microphones placed 10 centimetres from the plants picked up sounds in the ultrasonic range of 20 to 100 kilohertz, which the team says insects and some mammals would be capable of hearing and responding to from as far as 5 metres away. A moth may decide against laying eggs on a plant that sounds water-stressed, the researchers suggest. Plants could even hear that other plants are short of water and react accordingly, they speculate.
On average, drought-stressed tomato plants made 35 sounds an hour, while tobacco plants made 11. When plant stems were cut, tomato plants made an average of 25 sounds in the following hour, and tobacco plants 15. Unstressed plants produced fewer than one sound per hour, on average.
It is even possible to distinguish between the sounds to know what the stress is. The researchers trained a machine-learning model to discriminate between the plants’ sounds and the wind, rain and other noises of the greenhouse, correctly identifying in most cases whether the stress was caused by dryness or a cut, based on the sound’s intensity and frequency. Water-hungry tobacco appears to make louder sounds than cut tobacco, for example.
Enabling farmers to listen for water-stressed plants could “open a new direction in the field of precision agriculture”, the researchers suggest. They add that such an ability will be increasingly important as climate change exposes more areas to drought.
“The suggestion that the sounds that drought-stressed plants make could be used in precision agriculture seems feasible if it is not too costly to set up the recording in a field situation,” says Anne Visscher at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in the UK.
She warns that the results can’t yet be broadened out to other stresses, such as salt or temperature, because these may not lead to sounds. In addition, there have been no experiments to show whether moths or any other animal can hear and respond to the sounds the plants make, so that idea remains speculative（推测的）for now, she says.
1.The experiment by researchers at Tel Aviv University shows that_______.
A.tobacco plants make louder sounds than tomato plants when hurt
B.water-hungry tomato plants are more sensible than tobacco plants
C.unstressed plants produced sounds of laughter when being watered
D.plants respond to the sounds the plants make and protect themselves
2.What is Anne Visscher’s attitude towards the finding of the experiment?
A.Appreciative B.Doubtful
C.Cautious D.Optimistic
3.It can be learnt from the research that ________.
A.greenhouse effects can be avoided
B.soil condition can be adjusted in time.
C.plant condition can be diagnosed faster.
D.insects can be detected and removed easily.
4.What is the best title for the article?
A.Plants Get Stressed Just Like Us
B.Plants Scream in Presence of Stress
C.Sounds of Plants Detected Far Away
D.Sounds of Plants Break Farmers’ Hearts
THE OLD FISHERMAN
Our house was directly across a popular hospital. We rented the upstairs rooms to outpatients at the clinic. One summer evening, there was a knock at the door. I opened it to see a truly awful looking man, his face lopsided from swelling, red and raw. He told me he’d been hunting for a room since noon but he had no success. “I guess it’s my face. I know it looks terrible, but my doctor says with a few more treatments…”
For a moment I hesitated, but his next words convinced me: “I could sleep in this rocking chair on the porch. My bus leaves early in the morning.” I told him we would find him a bed, but to rest on the porch. It didn’t take a long time to see that this old man had an oversized heart crowded into that tiny body. He told me he fished for a living to support his daughter, her five children, and her husband, who was hopelessly crippled from a back injury. He didn’t tell it by way of complaint. He was grateful that no pain accompanied his disease.
At bedtime, we put a camp cot in the children’s room for him. When I got up in the morning, the bed linens were neatly folded and the little man was out on the porch. Before he left for his bus, haltingly, he said, “Could I please come back and stay the next time I have a treatment? I can sleep fine in a chair.” He paused a moment and then added, “Your children made me feel at home. Grownups are bothered by my face, but children don’t seem to mind.” I told him he was welcome to come again.
In the years he came to stay overnight with us. There was never a time that he did not bring us fish or oysters or vegetables from his garden. When I received these little remembrances, I often thought of a comment our next-door neighbor made after he left that first morning. “You can lose roomers by putting up such people!”
Maybe we did lose roomers once or twice. But oh! If only they could have known him, perhaps their illnesses would have been easier to bear. I know our family always will be grateful to have known him; from him we learned what it was to accept the bad without complaint and the good with gratitude.
1.When the old fisherman stayed overnight, the author’s children ________________.
A.were bothered B.were terrified
C.felt normal D.felt at home
2.Which of the following statement is true about the fisherman?
A.He is both tall and strong.
B.He has five grandchildren.
C.He is pessimistic about life.
D.He suffers from a back injury.
3.The old fisherman gave the author fishes and oysters because he________.
A.wanted the author to buy them.
B.wanted to pay the rent with them.
C.had fished too many fishes and oysters.
D.wanted to show his thankfulness to the author.
4.What can we learn from the story?
A.Never judge a book by its cover.
B.Little strokes fell great oaks.
C.Stay positive, stay grateful.
D.Honesty is the best policy.
Get involved with our research
Some of our research projects rely on the generosity of people like you. Whether it’s using your home PC, taking part in a clinical trial, or simply volunteering your time for a study, you may be able to contribute to some of the ground-breaking projects which make the University of Oxford a world leader in research. Watch this space for ways in which you could get involved.
Seeking poor sleepers for insomnia research
Trouble sleeping? Researchers from the Sleep & Circadian Neuroscience Institute at the University of Oxford are evaluating different interventions aimed at improving sleep. We are looking for poor sleepers between the ages of 18 and 65. Participation will involve spending overnights in the sleep laboratory at Oxford, monitoring your sleep/wake cycle, and completing computerised tasks. Depending on the study you volunteer for, you will either undergo an online self-help treatment programme or lab-based non-invasive brain stimulation sessions prior to bedtime. You will be reimbursed for your time.
If you are interested in taking part or would like more information, please contact the research team directly at insomnia@ndcn.ox.ac.uk
Volunteers with lazy eye wanted
We are looking for volunteers with a history of lazy eye to take part in our brain scanning study on how binocular(双眼的) vision relates to brain chemistry. We are looking for healthy, fluent English volunteers aged 18-45 with a history of lazy eye. You will also be asked questions about your medical history to check your suitability for an MRI scan.
Call 01865 223622 for more information.
Oxford Vaccine Group
The Oxford Vaccine Group is an independent multi-disciplinary clinical trials and epidemiology group. OVG works towards the goal of developing new and improved vaccines for the prevention of infection in adults and children, enhancing the understanding of immunity and studying the epidemiology of infectious diseases.
To find out which research projects are currently recruiting volunteers, please see the OVG website or email info@ovg.ox.ac.uk .
Oxford Experimental lab for the Social Sciences
The Oxford Internet Institute, together with the Business School, is recruiting individuals to participate in computer-based experiments involving online surfing behavior as well as economic and political decision-making. We pay our subjects well, there are no special skills required and you don’t have to be a student to take part!
Contact us at socialscience.study@ox.ac.uk for more information.
1.What is the main purpose of the passage?
A.To offer medical help to patients
B.To look for experienced researchers
C.To introduce new research programs
D.To recruit volunteers for research projects
2.The goal of OVG is to _______.
A.carry out clinical trials
B.produce vaccines against viruses
C.learn more about the immune system
D.study the occurrence of infectious diseases
3.You can finish the experiment on your home PC if you join __________.
A.Oxford Vaccine Group
B.Insomnia research group
C.Oxford Experimental lab
D.Brain Scanning study group
“Hi!” Steller shouted. “I’m driving around giving free haircuts. Do you want one right now?”
The man looked to be in his 60s, heavyset and missing a few teeth. “Actually,” he said, “I have a wedding to go to. I was really _______ to get a haircut.”
The man, named Edward, _______ sat on Steller’s red chair. She began to trim his curly graying hair. Then he began to tell her about his childhood, about moving here to be closer to his adult children, and how he still talks to his mom every day. After the haircut, Edward looked in a mirror, exclaiming “I look _______! I’ll remember to put my _______ in next time. I look better with teeth!”
To date, Steller has given 30 or so such haircuts. These clients all live on the margins (边缘), and she is keenly aware of the _______ of her clean-up job. “It’s more than a haircut,” she says. “I want it to be a gateway—to show value and _______.”
Steller knows that a haircut can change a life. As a teen, she suffered from a(n) _______ which was so severe that her hair _______ drastically. Seeing this, her mother arranged for Steller’s first professional haircut. “To sit down and have somebody talk to me like a person and not just an illness, it helped me feel _______ about and less alone,” she says.
After that, Steller decided to have her own salon so she could help people feel the ________ she’d felt that day. Not long after finishing cosmetology (美容术) school, she began her Red Chair Project, ________ out to people on the streets. Although she can’t ________ their problems by giving free haircuts, she believes it might help them feel less ________ for a moment.
Steller listens to people’s ________ of loss and struggle to get back on their feet. The attention apparently ________. When she was cutting a woman’s hair one day, someone drove by and yelled, “You look amazing!” The woman in the chair beamed. “I’m not ________,” she exclaimed. “I thought I was invisible. Look, people see me!”
A Branch of the Red Chair Project is the Steller Kindness Project, in which people who ________ acts of kindness are invited for a free makeover (美容) at Steller’s salon. In exchange, they tell their stories, which Steller ________ on her website. Her hope is that by reading about kind acts, others will be ________ to spread their own.
So far, it’s working. And it all began with a(n) ________ in simple acts of kindness, such as a free haircut.
1.A.hoping B.learning C.promising D.hesitating
2.A.freely B.gladly C.patiently D.voluntarily
3.A.fit B.ugly C.good D.silly
4.A.feet B.hand C.heart D.teeth
5.A.energy B.force C.length D.power
6.A.reward B.respect C.sympathy D.determination
7.A.attack B.threat C.accident D.disease
8.A.thinned B.loosened C.whitened D.shortened
9.A.cared B.worried C.known D.thought
10.A.use B.way C.need D.reason
11.A.running B.calling C.reaching D.pointing
12.A.fix B.face C.raise D.present
13.A.afraid B.alone C.annoyed D.ashamed
14.A.complaints B.explanations C.desires D.stories
15.A.disappears B.grows C.works D.spreads
16.A.innocent B.invisible C.unimportant D.uncommon
17.A.appreciate B.discover C.commit D.witness
18.A.creates B.enjoys C.sells D.shares
19.A.urged B.allowed C.inspired D.persuaded
20.A.belief B.trust C.investment D.pleasure
